Grave hunting

Down highway 117 in Wayne County is the town of Mount Olive. It's the home of the Mount Olive Pickle company, and little else, besides perhaps Ava Gardner, who was born in nearby Brogden. It's a sleepy little community of about 4,500; the sort of locality that is typical of eastern NC. A good portion of my family is also from this area - the Grady's, the Outlaws, and the Smiths. When my grandmother was a young woman she worked at the Mount Olive Pickle plant. Her family, the Gradys, had been a fixture in the area since the early 18th century. They were not only a fixture, but important players in North Carolina's early history; my 4th great uncle John Grady, of nearby Duplin County, was the first North Carolinian to die for the cause of American independence.

A trip in the works for some time had brought my family and I to Mount Olive, to locate the grave of my great-great grandfather, Simeon Grady. Simeon fought for the Confederacy; he served in the 2nd NC Infantry, was captured at Chancellorsville, and was kept in a Yankee prison for much of the war. I wouldn't have known about the general location of his grave had it not been for the investigations of B., who spent some time looking around on the internet at cemetery records. Simeon's grave, we were told by an anonymous surveyor, was located in the woods down an "unmarked path" off a backwoods road in Wayne County.

Getting to the road was easy enough, but finding this "unmarked path" proved a challenge. We drove up and down the road, looking for a possible "unmarked path," only to find several. One led off behind a menacing looking trailer surrounded by an electric gate and protected by a couple of surly pitbulls. We pulled up outside and hoped someone would hear the commotion of barking dogs and come to investigate, but no one showed. We then reversed course and went back towards a long driveway, hoping someone there might be of some assistance, but a "No Trespassing" sign greeted us.

My mom suggested we look further down the road. There were more pathetic trailers here as well. We knocked on one door and were greeted by a teenage girl who was enthusiastic about helping us, but was clueless. She led us back through a roughly hewn path on her property to an open field, but this was clearly not it.

By this point I was ready to give up. I was convinced it was behind the menacing looking trailer guarded by the surly pitbulls. But we continued down the road a little further. On the right was a dirt driveway with a couple of rusty mailboxes - hardly an "unmarked path." I didn't think this was it, but there was an old man nearby working on a thresher, and we went over to ask if he knew anything. He was wearing tattered clothes and a mesh trucker hat. He put one leg up on a tiller and wiped his reddened brow. He told us that the cemetery, called Anderson, was located down the dirt road we had just turned onto, and it had about 92 graves. My dad asked if the grave of Simeon Grady was there. "That doesn't sound familiar. There are some Mitchells, Andersons, Mozingos, and Graddys there." "Graddy" is how the name is pronounced in eastern NC. Turns out the old man, who has some of the dialectical mannerisms of my grandmother, is probably one of our cousins.

"Be careful back there. There's ants everywhere, and probably snakes."

And indeed there were ants everywhere. The graveyard was swarming with ants; it's impossible to stand still for more than a few seconds without them crawling up onto your shoes and legs. Dad and I looked around in the graveyard, and initially found the grave of his grandfather, Walter Grady, who died in 1951. A few feet away we found Simeon's grave, one of the larger stones in the cemetery. The swarms of ants made it impossible to really do much more than take a couple pictures and hastily make a rubbing. Apart from the ants it was a nice site, located next to some cornfields in a shady grove. Simeon's wife was nowhere to be found, but I think her tombstone may have been made of wood, as the surveyor's notes indicate that some of the markers were wood and have since been obliterated by the elements.

We then piled back into the car and continued on towards our main destination, the beach. My five year old sister, Claire, looked at me and said, "you know, graves are boring. The beach is more fun than looking at a grave." My dad and I appreciated it, though, and it was the high point of the weekend for me.